North Ossetia commemorates victims of Kolka Glacier

Today, North Ossetia marks the 10th anniversary of descent of the Kolka Glacier to the Genaldon (Karmadon) Gorge. Residents of the republic and Taimuraz Mamsurov, the republic's leader, laid flowers to the monument, erected to honour the memory of the deceased and missing persons.

On September 20, 2002, 19 persons perished and other 124 persons disappeared as a result of the descent of the Kolka Glacier to the Genaldon (Karmadon) Gorge in North Ossetia.

According to the press service of the leader of the region, the ceremony was started with a one minute's silence the participants of the ceremony paid tribute to the memory of the victims of the massive natural disaster and laid flowers to the memorial, the website of the leader of North Ossetia states.

The event was also attended by the scientists, who arrived to take part at the scientific forum "Kolka Glacier: observations, research, forecasts", held at the North-Caucasian Technological Institute.

During two days, the scientists, who gathered for the international conference on the Kolka Glacier in Vladikavkaz and who examined it before and after the disaster, failed to come to a consensus on the causes of the disaster.

According to Sergey Tabolov, Deputy Chairman of the Government of North Ossetia, at present, the researchers came to a conclusion that the tragic descent of the Kolka Glacier that occurred on September 20, 2002, was a unique natural phenomenon.

Sergey Chernomorets, Senior Research Officer of the Moscow Geographical University, stated that they were researching the Kolka Glacier in a year prior to the disaster, immediately after it, and during the years till 2009. According to him, the descent of the glacier was preceded by glacier collapses.

Lev Desinov, Research Officer of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Ph.D. in Geographical Sciences, strongly disagree the previous opinion. According to him, the descent of the glacier occurred, since a complex of environmental factors was converged in one place.

"The fact that the glacier fell is true; yes, it fell; however, it fell in advance and not on the day of the disaster. And that was the first natural factor: the glacier was loaded with ice mass. Meanwhile, the incident occurred could not be predicted, since that was a phenomenal disaster," the scientist said.

"A hotbed of magma was discovered under the glacier. It started producing fluid flows, that is, the masses of gas that seep out of the depths of the earth and come to the surface. They went to the glacier, to its slopes, and it became warming up. The entire system of the glacier was saturated with gases, there was also a lot of water under the glacier, and that water was also saturated with gases. And degassing occurred. The water, which was located inside the glacier, broke it into pieces. And the portion of gas under the glacier made efforts to release the glacier from its bed. There was an effect of opening a bottle with champagne," the scientist stated.

According to Lev Desinov, it was necessary to carry out ground-based observations and install a monitoring system in the mountains to keep track of the ongoing processes.

According to Mikhail Berger, the academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RANS), the main result of the decades of research of the disaster near the glacier in the Karmadon Gorge is determination of its gas and dynamic nature.

In his speech, Oleg Gabaraev, Vice Rector of the Mining and Metallurgical Institute, which hosted the international forum, has noted that North Ossetia needs a permanent monitoring system at the level of the RAS and proposed to open in Vladikavkaz a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the basis of the existing scientific centre, since, according to him, North Ossetia represents the most populous region, located in the area of risk of natural and technological disasters.

Let us remind you that in 2009, Sergey Chernomorets, Research Officer of the Geographical Faculty of the Moscow State University, together with a group of experts examined the Kolka Glacier and came to the conclusion that the probability of a new descent of glacier's masses is excluded for at least the next fifteen years.